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TIN News Update / 30 May, 1996 / total no of pages: 3 ISSN 1355-3313

The Chinese authorities have promoted the leaders of the People's Armed Police in Tibet in a move apparently designed to increase the status of the paramilitary units in Tibet. The units are expected to take a major role in the current campaign against the Tibetan independence movement, reflecting the prioritisation of sabotage as the main security threat in Tibet, and an ultimatum has been issued giving pro-independence activists and their associates 40 days to hand themselves in.

The promotion of the leaders of Tibet Corps of the People's Armed Police (PAP) was announced at a special meeting on 6th April, at which a joint proclamation from China's State Council and the Central Military Commission was read out to 300 of the top PAP officers.

The Tibet Corps Commander, Tan Huasheng, was accorded the military rank of Deputy Army Commander, and his three deputies were given the military rank of divisional commanders. Three deputy political commissars and the heads of the Corps' political and logistics departments were also accorded the same rank. Two of the nine officers given these promotions were Tibetan - Phurbu Tsering, a deputy political commissar, and a deputy commander named Ga-jin.

PAP units are usually ranked at least one level below their army equivalents, making a PAP corps normally on a par with an army division. Officers are often given promotions in areas such as Tibet where their work is seen as especially demanding, but the block promotion of the nine top officers has been read by some analysts as an indication that the Tibet corps has been enlarged and may now be above division-level strength.

A drive to enlarge the Tibet PAP was launched, on instructions from the Central Military Commission, after a grand parade of PAP troops and weaponry through the Tibetan capital in August 1994, described by Commander Tan at the time "as a new starting point" for the Tibet Corps. In February last year he announced plans to "further strengthen the building of Armed Police units according to the instructions of the higher command [and to] constantly raise fighting capability".

The latest promotions were followed on 6th May by the setting up of a new paramilitary training school in Tibet, known as the Lhasa Armed Police Command School, intended to train troops "to protect Tibet's social stability and fight the battle against splittism", according to the Tibet Daily, cited by the South China Morning Post on 19th May.

The size of the national People's Armed Police, a paramilitary force formed in 1983 which is now under military rather than police control, was variously estimated at between 450,000 and 600,000 in the late 1980s, and is believed to have been increased since then. The force deals with border control and provides supports for internal security but has been taking a growing responsibility for fighting independence movements in Xinjiang and Tibet. Its leader, Ba Zhongtan, is considered a close ally of China's Party Secretary Jiang Zemin, who may be giving his patronage to the force.

- Security Priority Shifts to Sabotage -

The increase in the PAP's status in Tibet coincides with a shift in security policy in the region, which has now made sabotage attacks by the pro-independence movement the main target for security operations. Throughout 1995 the main priority had been "fighting against splittists", the Chinese term for independence activists, as well as "protecting the unification of the motherland and stabilizing the situation in Tibet", which meant crushing small non-violent demonstrations and groups distributing pro-independence posters and publications by the exile Dalai Lama.

A series of bombs in Lhasa in the last nine months has allowed the Chinese authorities to take a more aggressive approach to security in Tibet, similar a western counter-terrorist operation, and may be linked to the growing strength of the PAP. Unofficial sources have reported at least seven bomb explosions in Lhasa since June last year, including one at the gates of the Regional Communist Party Headquarters in March, but no-one has claimed responsibility for the incidents.

In the Tibet Daily of 11th May the Chinese authorities admitted for the first time that bombs have gone off in Lhasa, and blamed the exile Tibetan government for the explosions, without giving any details. "The Dalai clique has frantically pounced on us again, and has constantly carried out violent and terrorist sabotage activities," announced Raidi, the highest ranking Tibetan official in Lhasa, in a speech on 9th May. "Since the beginning of last year it has created many incidents of explosions and other incidents one after another," he said.

On 20th May an announcement by the Chinese authorities went a step further, accusing the exiles of also planning assassinations. "Our main tasks are to resolutely crack down on cases of explosion and assassination committed by separatists", said the announcement, which again gave no details.

"The allegations are totally baseless," said a spokesman for the exile Tibetan government today in London. "We are seeking to end the Tibetan issue through negotiation, and violence is not on the agenda," he added.

The new military-type approach means that all dissidents in Tibet are now liable to be treated as accessories to terrorist organisations and to suffer stiffer punishment even if they are not connected to the new bonbing groups.

Chinese politicians have always used the term "sabotage" to describe any speeches or activities by the Dalai Lama, but are now using the word in its normal sense to refer to terrorist-type incidents of violence. The latest documents include "beating, looting and smashing" - the standard Chinese phrase for damage caused by demonstrators - as a form of sabotage.

- Firearms Crimes Up 50%; Ultimatum Gives 40 Days -

A visible sign of the new style crack-down on dissent came last week when the police and the courts in Tibet issued an ultimatum for Tibetan activists to turn themselves over to the authorities, believed to be the first such order since 1987. The proclamation, which was published in the Tibet newspapers on 21st May and broadcast on the radio the following day, told pro-independence activists and criminals to hand themselves in by 30th June.

"After the publication of this public notice, those who refuse to surrender themselves to the law-enforcement authorities, run away or even continue to commit crimes will be punished in a more severe and prompt manner when they are apprehended and be punished in a relentless manner", said the order, according to the BBC's Monitoring Service. It offered reduction or exemption from punishment for those who confessed before the deadline, but only if they also "expose the crimes of other law offenders with good results".

The ultimatum covered not just criminals on the run, but also anyone who helps them. "Those who connive at crimes and protect and hide criminals will be punished together with criminals", it said, in what may be a reference to people who are hiding up to 400 monks from Ganden monastery, 40 km east of Lhasa, who fled police reprisals after a protest on 6th May.

The order set out a "voluntary" obligation for all government employees and schoolchildren to act as informers. "All offices, institutions, schools, enterprises and other undertakings, neighbourhoods and mass organisations have the obligation and responsibility to voluntarily provide clues and proofs of crimes", it said, promising to protect informers from retaliation. The order is addressed initially to the "small number of separatists [who] have engaged in violent activities such as blowing things up", but also includes murderers, rapists, arms-dealers, pornographers, and prostitutes.

The increase in the profile of the paramilitary in Tibet coincides with a China-wide campaign against serious crime, which is on the increase in China and is a major problem in Tibet. In 1995 murders in the Tibet Autonomous Region rose by 20 percent, robberies by 27 percent, rapes by 36 percent and crimes involving guns by 54 percent compared with 1994, according to an article in the Tibet Legal Daily cited by Reuters on 26th May.

The three month campaign against crime launched in Tibet on 9th May listed "separatists' sabotage activities" above other forms of crime, and ordered officials "to deal a deadly blow at criminals" and "by no means to show mercy" towards "reactionaries and saboteurs". "There should be no compromise or accommodation whatsoever", said the Tibet Daily on 10th May. Parallel campaigns are under way throughout China, and are particularly severe in Xinjiang, where 9 Islamic activists were killed in a gun battle last month.

Two parades of convicted prisoners have already taken place in Lhasa this month, the latest at 9am on 21st May when 18 prisoners were taken on two trucks around the town. There are unconfirmed reports that 3 Tibetans wereexecuted on 10th May for drug-trafficking and dealing in firearms. [end]